


A Smirk is Still a Smile

by Azurite



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Community: yuugiouxmasfic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-05
Updated: 2005-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 16:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8760295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azurite/pseuds/Azurite
Summary: Originally posted for the yuugiouxmasfic LiveJournal Secret Santa fic exchange in December 2005. Theme: "Ribbons & Bows"





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shoelace-tan](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Shoelace-tan).



> **By:** Azurite (aka Socks)  
>  **Character/Pairing:** Seto x Anzu x Mokuba (so I sort of mashed together two of your pairings... that's okay, I hope?) [Faultshipping]  
>  **Disclaimer:** I forgot to mention the last time around that while I do own a  
>  Blue-Eyes White Dragon, I don't own a Polymerization. So yeah, I don't really  
>  own "all" of Yu-Gi-Oh. Bummer.  
>  **Theme:** Week 2 - Ribbons  & Bows (for the LiveJournal community  
>  yuugiouxmas fic in 2005)  
>  **Notes:** Yeah, late again. But I had to condense a 35 page story into 20 pages  
>  or less. And when it's supposed to be a short story and it started out as a  
>  five-chapter fanfiction... well, you can guess how difficult it was!
> 
> * * *

It was at least three meters tall. It had to be. It was probably imported from some northern European country where pine trees grew SIX meters tall, and shipping regulations prevented Kaiba from getting one of those. After all, there was more than enough room from the tip of the pine tree and the ceiling, still several meters up.

Though Anzu rather enjoyed looking at the large Christmas trees that were so common during this holiday season, she never thought she would have the opportunity to decorate one. But here she was at the Kaiba mansion, one freezing winter after she'd graduated from Juilliard and returned home to Japan. Now she was working her way through the ranks in one of Tokyo's most prestigious dance companies, but because she wasn't prima ballerina yet, she had the winter break off. No performances of "Nutcracker" to worry about...

Instead, she had to worry about how to properly adorn a Christmas tree that was probably four times taller than she was.

_'I'm barely 162 centimeters. How the heck are we supposed to get all these ribbons and bows on the middle of the tree, let alone the top?'_ Anzu thought with a measure of frustration. Anzu stretched as far as she could go, even standing on her toes in pointe, but without toe shoes to support her, she flopped back down on her heels without pushing the silk red bow onto the branch she'd been aiming for.

Anzu was about to lose her balance and topple backward into a myriad of boxed ornaments, but a warm, solid force prevented her from moving more than a few centimeters. Anzu craned her neck upward, her lips curving into a smile when she realized Mokuba had caught her. At sixteen years old, Mokuba had long since gotten his growth spurt, and now he was nearly as tall as his brother. But while the older Kaiba remained stoic even during the holiday season, Mokuba had absolutely no problem charming everyone he came across with his sweet smile. Entire flocks of girls swooned in unison whenever he flashed his pearly white teeth at them; the depth of his indigo eyes didn't help any.

_'What am I doing? Mokuba's six years younger than me... I shouldn't be admiring him!'_

But Anzu could hardly help the telltale pink blush that spread across her cheeks as Mokuba pressed up against her, one hand firmly gripping her shoulder as he guided her arm back up to the branch so that their hands could both push the bow onto the branch.

"Thanks, Mokuba," Anzu said at last.

"No problem, Anzu." Then he chuckled to himself as he turned away, plucking something from one of the ornament boxes. "You're still as stubborn as I remember-- you won't ask for help even when you need it."

Anzu's lips curled into a pout. "Is that such a bad thing? Your brother would call it independence, or determination, or--"

But before Anzu could continue, Mokuba leaned in, dangling what was undeniably a piece of mistletoe over her head. "Are you going to be stubborn now?"

Anzu's previous blush deepened into a scarlet shade; for the first time in her life, she felt utterly speechless. Was this really happening? Was Kaiba \--er, Mokuba Kaiba-- flirting with her?

Mokuba obviously took Anzu's blush and lack of a protest as a negative answer to his question; in the time it took Anzu to blink, she felt a warm pressure on her lips. Her eyes flew open out of instinct, and for the first time she allowed herself to admire the face that was so near hers, lips fixed on hers with a sensuality that spoke of experience beyond Anzu's own twenty-two years.

The younger Kaiba had not only lost his short stature from his childhood years, but also the baby fat that most children were prone to keeping throughout their adolescence. He'd also traded his favorite striped polo shirts and thick vests for a tailored, uniform look; something that made him appear infinitely crisp and attractive regardless of how messy his ebony black hair was. His hair remained the same length though, which was a bit of a comfort for Anzu; she doubted she would have recognized sixteen-year-old Mokuba if he hadn't sported the same shaggy, shoulder-length black hair.

Yet what surprised her was that unlike Seto, Mokuba was far from lanky. In fact, if the pair of arms currently snaking around her torso were any indication, Mokuba possessed quite the muscular frame! For a moment, Anzu relished in the feeling of being held so closely yet so tenderly by someone-- but that was when a loud, smashing sound interrupted them.

Mokuba reluctantly took his arms --and his lips-- away from Anzu, staring in the direction of the sound. They were the only two in the main hallway decorating the tree, so what had made that noise? Mokuba carefully stepped over streams of garland and tinsel and lines of unlit twinkle lights until he found the culprit-- a large, red ornament once in the shape of a heart, now shattered in sparkling little pieces all over the floor. The branch that it had apparently fallen from was still quivering.

"That's too bad-- this was a nice ornament," Mokuba picked up the pieces carefully, trying not to cut his hand. Once he'd gathered all the pieces up, he headed toward the kitchen, jerking his head toward Anzu. "Feeling any particular craving?" he asked devilishly. "Once I'm done with this, I figure I'll call for some take out."

"Whatever you want is fine by me," Anzu smiled. The blush on her cheeks was starting to fade, as was the warmth that Mokuba's arms had offered her. Her eyes kept getting drawn back to the spot where the ornament had fallen from, where a lone branch kept on quivering.

Moments after Mokuba had disappeared into the kitchen, Anzu carefully made her way toward the enormous tree, stepping over boxes of bows, ribbons, wreaths, holly, and more mistletoe. She was nearing the spot where the ornament had fallen when she heard it quite distinctly: a sharp, inhaled breath.

_'Last time I checked, dead trees didn't breathe,'_ Anzu thought wryly to herself. She pushed aside a few evergreen branches blocking one side of the marble stairway, revealing Seto Kaiba there, standing in his immaculate black turtleneck and slacks as if he were part of the tree. He looked as perfectly stoic as ever-- but his body language revealed that he was anything but calm. Both hands were curled into tight fists, his fingers pressed so tightly against his palm that his knuckles had turned a snowy white. His usually open, narrowed blue eyes were closed, and his lips were set in such a straight line that one could imagine him gritting his teeth behind them.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Anzu asked without introduction. Though Kaiba had been the one to invite her to the mansion to help decorate \--supposedly on behalf of Mokuba, but when Mokuba revealed he was surprised by Anzu's arrival, the girl knew better-- this was the first time she had seen him all day. But it seemed rather usual for them to encounter one another in odd situations like these, where no greeting was necessary.

Maybe 'odd' wasn't the best word for this particular situation though. Perhaps 'awkward' would be better. A fleeting thought gave Anzu the impression that Kaiba didn't usually drop ornaments and hide behind Christmas trees; in fact, he probably didn't usually invite people over to help decorate his Christmas tree. Though he and Mokuba were the only members of the Kaiba family, it hardly stopped the elder Kaiba from buying the most extravagant of ornaments and decorations-- nonetheless, it seemed odd for him to want someone else to come over and help pretty up the mansion, when that sort of activity was usually reserved for other family members. At least, that was always how it had been in Anzu's home around this time of year... decorating the tree was a family event, something special to be looked forward to...

_'And yet I have the sinking sensation I might have just screwed up this one...'_

Kaiba still didn't answer his question and, trapped between the stairway and Anzu, it wasn't as if he could just stalk off and escape.

"You saw, then?" Anzu persisted. When Kaiba flinched, Anzu got her answer. When she noticed his cheeks burning red, Anzu's breath caught in her throat.

_'No way. I'm totally interpreting this all wrong.'_ She blinked, blinked again, looked up and away from Kaiba, blinked a third time, and then turned to look at him once more. His cheeks were still a telltale sign of embarrassed red, and every fiber in Anzu's being was telling her it wasn't because he was shy about watching his brother kiss a woman, or even that Anzu had pretty much caught him in a confession.

No, this was something else altogether.

"I never knew Mokuba to be much of a flirt," Anzu admitted in a low voice. "Really it was unexpected, that whole mistletoe thing he pulled on me."

Kaiba opened his eyes at last, but he didn't say anything. Still, the look in his eyes seemed enough for Anzu. She didn't know when or how she'd gotten so good at reading Kaiba's expressions, so perhaps it was just a one-time fluke.

"Oh, don't even assume that I kissed him back because I liked it so much, or because I wanted it that badly." Anzu scowled. "I'm not that kind of a girl Kaiba, and you know it. It wouldn't have mattered who it was, it's mistletoe, and I'm trying to be in the holiday spirit, okay? Why else would I be here?"

A rhetorical question. Anzu never bothered to ask him 'Why are you inviting me over?' or 'Why should I come?' She just happily agreed to show up at his mansion on the set date and time, and that was that. She was there-- because. There didn't have to be anything more to it than that.

Kaiba's eyes unexpectedly flitted upward and remained fixed on some distant point high up-- and when Anzu realized he was no longer looking at her, but ignoring her, her scowl deepened.

"Hey, what's so fascinating up there geni--" Anzu's voice trailed off as she realized what Kaiba was looking at. A spring of mistletoe, hanging delicately off the branch right above their heads. Anzu didn't know why she hadn't spotted it sooner.

Kaiba's gaze met hers once more, and Anzu felt decidedly warm from her head to her toes. This was a completely different feeling from the warmth Mokuba had instilled in her when he'd kissed her. For one, Anzu felt warm before Kaiba even came near her --if he would even come near her. But why else would he have made it such a point to call her attention to the mistletoe right above them? Did he expect her to back away from it and let him escape, thereby contradicting the words she'd just spoken a moment ago?

_'I don't know what he's expecting, or what he wants out of me... or even if I assumed that look on his face all wrong. So I guess I'll just have to ask.'_ While many girls would have been terrified of asking Kaiba what two squared was, let alone whether or not he wanted to kiss them, this was a rather bold thought for Anzu to have. But she'd spent most of her teenage years around boys, being called a tomboy herself, and figuring the lessons of life out the hardest way possible. As such, she didn't have much time to waste on second-guessing, regrets on past actions, or hesitation.

"Do you want to kiss me, Kaiba?" Anzu asked softly. In retrospect, she realized she could have said "Do you want me to kiss you," but Anzu decided that her chosen turn of phrase was best. Tomboy or no, Kaiba was still the man, and Anzu realized that she'd seen that in him all along. She'd always respected and admired him for how adult he often seemed --or at least, forced himself to be. Compared to Jounouchi, Honda, and even Yugi, who had grown up far faster than he should have once the Pharaoh went back to his rightful place...

But that was all years ago, and now they all really were adults, and things like this couldn't be taken so frivolously as before. What would happen if he answered yes? What would happen if he didn't answer at all?

The problem was that Seto Kaiba was a wild card in Anzu's life; she could never quite predict what he would do or say whenever they did encounter each other. And so it was with his response: not a yes, and not a no, but far from no answer at all. Kaiba shifted away from the tree and the stairway wall. His head moved down, just a few centimeters, and in the time it took for that warm, tingling feeling to reach Anzu's toes at last, his lips met hers. This was a wholly different kiss from what Mokuba's was; Seto's lips moved warmly and slowly against hers, inexpertly, but sweetly nonetheless. For a moment, Anzu was elated to think that perhaps she was Seto Kaiba's first kiss, but after a minute of plying her lips against his the way she wanted to be kissed, he began to kiss her once more, this time with expert movement and warmth.

It seemed like hours later when they finally parted, and the warmth had grown into a blazing fire that seemed to call for Anzu to curl up before it like she would before a roaring Yule fire. The haze in Anzu's cerulean eyes finally faded, like the frost from a window on a sunny day. When she looked up at Kaiba, the expression on his face was different than she'd ever seen before, and practically unreadable. But...

"You're smiling..." Anzu murmured, smiling herself as she traced a finger over Kaiba's warm, full lips.

"I don't smile," Kaiba said in a low voice, nipping at Anzu's fingertip as it brushed against his skin.

Anzu's own smile curved as she stared at Kaiba through half-lidded eyes. "A smirk is still a smile... Seto."


End file.
